It really depends on which perspective you are looking from.

From a 1922 perspective (as in the creation of the Soviet 'Republic'), the first few years were certainly shaky. This is due to the years of systematic bloodshed, 'War Communism', Civil war and just the classic numerous famines in which communism and failed harvests came with it. In 1921, Lenin soon realised the the ambitious removal of essentially all things capitalist (especially within Finance and infrastructure) was an error in part. Within the Tenth party congress in 1921 he revealed his new intention of adopting petty capitalism to revive the newly formed socialist state; The New Economic Policy. This as you can imagine had a mixed reception, especially from die hard revolutionaries (Gorsuch, 1997). Despite the step back from socialist progression, Lenin's views were still technically in toe with the greater communist picture. (Read Lenin's 'On Compromises', 1917 for more info).

However as you know, Lenin died in 1924, which embarked the Soviets in a leadership battle, resulting in the death of Trotsky, removal of Bukharin [de facto] and arrival of Josef Stalin. However before his arrival, Lenin put in place the markers for the Soviet cultural revolution. Propaganda, Social reforms, unity and general interest in bettering the the socialist state so it could create 'the new man'. (David-Fox, 1999). This mixed with Stalin's first 5 year plan, to many, showed that the newly formed USSR was adapting to their new surroundings and had the makings of a functioning state.. But Stalin from 1928 especially created better foundations for industry and endorsed the cultural revolution with ferocity, which demonstrated to the world and the Russian people that there was a future ahead. . (MacCauley, 1981).

Obviously from the viewpoint of the average peasant, which I believe made up of some 80% of Russian population [can't find citation], the revolution was something that they could not comprehend or deal with. Feudal ideas mixed with famine, relocation (especially during Stalin's 5 year plan and collectivisation), and understanding what a 'Kulak' was, meant that the USSR was something that was often feared. Peasant uprisings occurred regularly throughout the early years, especially when famine loomed. Lynne Viola has done extensive work into how the peasants deal with the revolution, and would recommend reading any of her stuff to understand peasant mentalities.

Additionally, get yourself on marxists.org, as its a collection of primary translated documents from high end political figures. But be wary - there is ALOT, so recommend reading their most popular works.

Note: This is a very very small run down on what happened during the early years - and something you could write volumes on. But hopefully this small account just shows that it had very shaky foundations, but had strong potential.

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Citations

David-Fox, Michael, ‘What is Cultural Revolution?’, The Russian Review, 58:2 (1999), pp.181-201.

Gorsuch, Anne. E, ‘NEP be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and Culture of Civil War’, Russian Review, 56:4 (1997), pp. 564-580.

McCauley, Martin, The Soviet Union since 1917 (London, 1981)

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I dispute your assertion that the USSR collapsed because people were "poor and starving". Food consumption in 1980s USSR was well within the expected norm for industrialized nations. The last famine in the USSR occured in 1946-1948. The main problem of later USSR wasn't malnutrition or hunger, but badly supplied shops and associated long lines. Said situation would greatly vary based on where you lived, sat,central Moscow might have well supplied shops while a tiny Siberian village will likely be nothing to write home about. Remember, part of the reason for this is was heavy subsidization of basic goods to keep them affordable. It is often also mentioned that USSR imported grain from the US, but a lot of that grain was feed grain to increase meat production. Planned economies often resulted in "paradoxical" results like meat consumption going up despite it being in a worse shortage than before. That is because increased afforfability often meant greater shortages, which often meant that just because people stoid a line for something that they didn't before, it didn't necessarily mean they consumed less of it. A lot of the malaise of Soviet economy was actually caused by the planned economy not being able to keep up with increasing expectations and consumption

Sources: CIA report 'USSR: The Food Supply Situation', March 1985 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86T00591R000100140005-4.pdf

Nove, Alec (1992). An Economic History of the USSR 1917–1991. Penguin Books. pages 373–375.